News

The ImproveCareNow Collaborative is a program in which pediatric gastroenterologists at 16 practice sites in the US are working together to develop, test and implement quality improvement tools to improve the care and health of over 2,000 children and adolescents with Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Since early 2008 the proportion of our Crohn’s disease patients who are in remission has progressively increased from 49% to 64%, and the remission rate of our ulcerative colitis patients is increasing as well. 

This past Friday, doctors, nurses, parents and policy makers met to release the much anticipated results of a study by ImproveCareNow, the collaborative that is helping kids with Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis get better now. Writing about the event, Thomas McCormally, senior director of Public Relations at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, says:

The American Board of Pediatrics (ABP) is the certifying organization for pediatric physicians.  Certification by the ABP is recognized throughout the world as a credential signifying a high level of physician competence.

ImproveCareNow is a quality improvement project that focuses on measuring and improving the care we provide for our patients with IBD.  Since we joined ImproveCareNow in October 2007, we have enrolled 184 patients at UNC and have recorded over 400 visits to our clinic.  These patients, including your child, are included in an online database which stores information on more than 2000 pediatric IBD patients around the country.  At each visit, we record the patient’s height, weight, medication use, and related lab values to be stored in the database.  We also take note of nutritional status, disease status, and growth. 

ImproveCareNow makes its abstracts available on its website. These abstracts, authored by a collaboration of researchers, physicians, and quality improvement experts dedicated to helping children and adolescents with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, have been presented at national scientific meetings such as the 2009 NASPGHAN Annual Meeting and Advances in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Conference, among others.

ImproveCareNow encourages all who wish to learn more about an exciting program to improve medical care and health for children and teens with ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease to attend.  A copy of the invitation, including location and event date and time, is below.